Around the same time I’d received a message from the one-photo profile, I got a message from a two, semi-blurry-photos profile who had misread the genre of music I was into. He apparently missed the “not” in “I’m not into…” and messaged me talking about those kinds of bands. I was going to ignore the message only because it felt slightly awkward, but a day or two later realized that was silly and simply replied that he must’ve misread what I’d written and asked what else he was interested in. We wound up in a fun conversation with a lot of jokes going back and forth. It was simple conversation, very playful, fun and flirty. I started to feel like I was coming off a lot funnier than I may actually be in person, and began thinking it would be better if we met and cleared that up because I’d give any further false impression about me. Perhaps it was also just that we shared a similar sense of humor and would continue to find each other humorous in person after all. I was hesitant about meeting someone with blurry pictures, but after such fun conversation, I was still intrigued enough.

The coffee date was more like a short lunch of sandwiches with tea. I’m pretty sure asking someone to get a coffee no longer necessarily means exactly that. This date was pretty unlike the date from the previous night. Appearance-wise he did have facial-hair opposed to being clean shaven, was slightly older than me while the other date was slightly younger, his family was of a different religion, he had lived in this area for longer, and just had a difference sort of lifestyle. He pulled out his credit card when I’d barely had a chance to offer to pay. Granted, the total was less than half the amount of the previous night’s dinner. The total meant nothing to me, but I knew I was giving him points with the gesture of paying. He seemed more fun, more interesting, and like he probably had a more similar sense of humor to me. Still, I wasn’t sure about how attractive I found him either. I sort of rated him at a medium level. I suppose I’d see him again as well. Then it dawned on me that although at an early stage of things, I was dating two people at once, with plans of meeting more the following week. (There are two women I’ve exchanged numbers with who said they were free next weekend and would text me closer to then.) Immediately I began to panic about whether I could handle it. I felt like Phoebe on Friends in that episode where she’s dating two guys at once –I’ve recently been re-watching the entire series since it’s become available on NetFlix Watch Instantly. It felt very appropriate at this point in my life with all the dating that goes on in the show. I replied to one guy’s texts, “Yeah I had a good time too,” followed by answering the other guy’s text with my e-mail so he could send me some article he thought I might be interested in. I’m enjoying the contrast between the two dates, while remaining somewhat interested in both at the moment.

I noticed that both of them texted me right as I was getting home, about an hour after the date, that they had a good time and were interested in seeing me again. It’s not the first time I’ve received a text that quickly after a date either. So, I’ve decided that waiting two-three days before calling rule is dead ever since textmessaging became popular, but I think texting the next day is also acceptable, especially after a late night out. I haven’t come up with nick names to keep track of them yet on this blog, but I’m sure I’ll have something to call them after the second date, provided we all get to that point. Hopefully things don’t go too well with both of them for long, so I won’t feel weird back-to-back dating the two of them, especially if I wind up kissing one of them goodnight. So far, I’ve only given both a friendly sort of goodbye hug. I think it’s all acceptable this early on, of course, but I’ll have to be upfront with them if anything progresses much further with either of them…or next week’s potential dates. Do you hear the nervousness behind this post from someone who’s never truly cheated on someone and doesn’t plan on starting?

The second date texted me a sort of check-in, hope-my-day-at-work-wasn’t-too-bad kind of text. We had a bit of back and forth text conversation. It was nice. He won some more points on that. The only thing is, I notice myself getting more excited about the fact that there’s *someone* than over who it is. It’s more over, “aw, *someone* acceptable is interested in me!” and less “I’m excited about someone who’s interested in me!” I suppose that’s just sort of what happens after such a long stretch of singleness and no “somebody” to text little anecdotes about your day to…I guess it’s always nice to have that and another reason to temporarily forget the downside of dating/being in a relationship.